1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is generally related to the field of transferring, receiving and utilizing electronic gift certificates, and more particularly, to methods for transferring, receiving and utilizing electronic gift certificates over the Internet.
2. Description of Related Prior Art
A conventional gift certificate is a printed piece of paper that includes the value of the certificate and the stores or stores at which the gift certificate can be redeemed for merchandise. Employers and others often use it when they do not want to purchase an item that may not be favorably received by the intended recipient.
An e-mail gift certificate works much like a conventional gift certificate. It has a printed denomination value and its graphic image is transferred over the Internet to the designated recipient. The recipient can then redeem the certificate at any participating merchant. Such a gift certificate forces the sender and the recipient to:
a) disclose the exact amount of money the sender is "willing" to spend on the recipient. PA1 b) choose only from products or services available from the participating merchant.
It is widely known that a disclosed price or a cash gift reduces the value of a gift to plain dollars and cents, i.e., it "cheapens" the gift by associating a specific dollar value thereto which is maximum the giver is willing to spend on the recipient. Unfortunately, the practice of giving an electronic gift certificate does not solve the problem since a dollar value is still associated with the certificate.
In a similar vein, for this reason, the price tag of a gift is invariably removed therefrom before the gift is wrapped so that the intended recipient is unaware of the cost of the gift. However, the recipient can obtain the price spent by the giver on the gift when the gift is returned. Indeed, it is often a problem with the proliferation of sales, that the exact amount spent on the gift by the giver is not necessarily the amount received by the recipient when returning the gift since the amount returned is often the lowest recent sales price. In such a case, the receipt may actually receive less than the giver paid and will not appreciate the monetary value of the gift to its fullest extent.